7 Murder On My Mind

—Takeru's Journal—

The old man gave me and Toyohisa these journals to write in. Apparently he says it's good for us to get what we can't put into words out on paper, but meh. He's weird. In the past month or so, our training has been incredibly intense. Inhumanly so and the fact that the old man does them with us is crazy.

Rocks? We can easily crush them in our hands, trees? One kick and it's down. Although all of this is wild, my surprise was towards Toyohisa rather than the man. In the manga and anime it showed him doing crazy shit, but this was wild.

I know for a fact that I'm stronger than him naturally, but he shouldn't even be able to do what he's doing. I'm not mad nor jealous, but I am shocked. After all, he's my crazy brother. Happy, we can do it, let's cut it up, samurai loving older brother. Well, older by like an hour.

Anyways, that's it for today's excerpt.

—2 Months later—

Good news and bad news. I've mastered four of the eight sword techniques in Zoro's one sword style. I plan on moving towards the second sword style in a few months since things are picking up. My brain processes and understands things increasing fast.

Not only that, all of my senses have been amazing. Even my normal instincts are getting better. Now onto the bad news. Yesterday the old man pranked Toyohisa by dumping cold water on him in the morning and today Toyohisa got him back by pushing him in the lake with a new kimono on.

He was punished with no lunch after a crazy training session. I tried fighting for his right to eat, but in the end I joined him and also lost my dinner.

—6 Months Later—

Me and my brother officially turned 5 and as a birthday present we got clothes and finally a real katana. Well a wakizashi, but it was perfect for our size. Apparently he had tons in his basement and didn't care about giving these away.

I've mastered the one sword style three months ago and have long since moved on to two sword styles. Toyohisa nor the old man asked why I was using two swords and it seemed like they didn't care. In fact my own brother called me a nutcase to the old man.

Bah! I digress! In three months I've learned Taka Nami, Sai Kuru, and Nitoryu Iai: Rashomon.

—1 Month Later—

The old man and Toyohisa seem to be on terms with calling me nutcase from this point forward. Every time I'm in their presence my nickname comes up. Well, they didn't say that when I almost kicked the old man's ass with my two sword style. Almost because my balance kept getting fucked up and I haven't fully mastered the use of two swords.

Meh, I'm getting better as time passes.

—2 Year Mark—

We've been Yoritomo's students for a full year now. Honestly I saw this guy as part of the family. Sort of like those old men from anime. He pranked us a lot and we had good times along with our fair share of arguments and heated moments or frustration and stress, but overall it's what family do.

Along with that was training, he stopped participating in training and told us to just do the workouts till our arms dropped and I sorta knew why. He couldn't train us anymore. I knew we were well out of his range in physical abilities and although he had experience and technique, there's no point if you can't touch us.

Toyohisa is basically some masochist that likes taking hits, so even if you cut him, he didn't care. I just dodged and counter attacked. We were both better than him, but he still taught us techniques, footwork and more.

Apparently he said he had something special he wanted to give us, for our 8th birthday so that'll be it for now. Although something is weird…

—Current Time—

(Third POV)

As Toyohisa closed his journal and got up from his seat he walked out of the room. He came around the desk and went outside as he saw Toyohisa sitting in front of the old man.

"Ah, you're finally here." The old man said as he and Toyohisa stood up.

"What's going on?" He asked as he stood by Toyohisa.

"Nothing, just follow me for the moment." The old man answered before turning away and walking past the tree stump. Yeah, Leonidas was able to cut it down a while back.

Anyways

They walked the dirt road up the hill in silence until Toyohisa said something.

"Hey what are we doing? You said you had a surprise right?" Toyohisa asked impatiently.

"What is the main teaching of a samurai?" The old man asked.

"To fight with honor." Toyohisa answered.

"Yes, but no. Takeru?"

"Patience." He answered in a calm voice.

"Correct. Just a bit further up the road and you'll see your surprise." He said.

At this point they were both intrigued by this surprise. What would require them to come all the way out here?

As they both walked further down the road and over the hill, they saw something just at the huge tree that they both fell from. Takeru suddenly froze in his step. They were a few hundred meters away from the tree, but Takeru could see it clearly.

At the tree that he and Toyohisa fell from, he saw bodies upon bodies of people from the Shimazu clan dead. Laid out on the ground, circling the tree with no heads. The way they were laid out made it look like they were holding hands with their legs spread all the way out.

"…" Wordlessly he looked at the old man who had a subtle smile on his face as he and Toyohisa stopped. Toyohisa, after squinting his eyes, too was able to witness the scene at the tree.

'The heads? Where are they?' He thought. The way they were taught was that the soul rested in the head and so if it was given a proper burial it would pass over without problem.

But where were they?

"So you can see from here? I should've blindfolded you." He said, slapping his knee.

"Did you do this?" Takeru asked. Yoritomo turned and looked at Takeru and once he did, he stiffened up a bit.

His eyes were wide while his pupils were dilated as much as possible. Blood veins could be seen on the white part of his eyes as a heavy pressure burst from his body. The wind blew strong as they stood there in silence.

"…yes." He answered in a cold tone. Toyohisa's mouth dropped and his eyes dimmed. Four about two years this man took care of them like his own kids. Why did he do this?

"Why…WHY DID YOU KILL OUR SAMURAI?!" Toyohisa shouted as he gripped his wakizashi.

"Why? Why indeed? I guess…because I felt like it." He said with a smile.

"Haha..hahahah..hahahahahahahahah!!"

His smile grew across his face and stretched from ear to ear as his eyes were shaped into moon like crescents. His laughter filled the space around them as he calmed down and wiped a tear from his eye.

"YOU…I'LL KILL YOU!!" Toyohisa flew into a blind rage and dashed towards the old man. Toyohisa was fast, but the old man was able to react on instinct and dashed to the right.

"Tell me, have you heard about the Misizumi Massacre?" He asked in a low tone. Toyohisa didn't answer and changed his direction as he slashed his sword down on the old man. In an instant, the old man took out his katana and pushed Toyohisa back.

Toyohisa stood there and grit his teeth. His body felt as if it didn't want to hurt this man, but his mind was telling him to cut the man in front of him to nothing.

"You mean the samurai school that was completely destroyed? You mean you killed 32 people including kids for what? The same reason as you killed my father's samurai?" Takeru asked in a tone as chilling as the arctic.

"Those guys deserved what happ-"

"The kids too?"

Don't think that Takeru's mind has been persuaded to be some honorable samurai hero that'll do anything for peace and justice. The only thing about him that changed from before he died was that he had a family that he cared about.

That was it. Other than that everything and everyone else can go to hell, but this old man was growing on him. Keyword 'was'. This man killed innocent kids. The men there most likely did deserve death, but killing kids for what?

"What was the reason?"

"Didn't I already tell you-"

"I mean the kids. What was the reason for them to die?" Takeru asked.

"Hmmm, it was in the heat of the moment." He said casually.

Neither of them could understand it. How could he hide such a personality and how did it come out so abruptly and why did he randomly reveal it to them?

"Whatever the case may be…" Takeru held the handle of his wakizashi in a reverse grip and in an instant he dashed over towards the old man.

[Ittoryu Iai: Shishi Sonson]

With barely any time to think, Yoritomo relied on his instincts and was able to raise his blade to block the slash. Well that's what he thought. His blade was easily cut through and there was a huge gouge mark on his waist.

Blood shot out of his side and he stumbled back as he dropped his sword and coughed up blood.

"Look at you now, barely able to stand from one attack." Takeru said as he walked over to Yoritomo. Toyohisa stood there looking at his brother as he bit his lip. He didn't understand the gap between them in well…everything. Was he not working hard enough or did Takeru just have something he lacked?

Seeing Takeru swing his blade and cutting the old man's arm off, his head reeled back.

"Takeru, killing him like that isn't-" He was cut off when his brother took his sword and seung it down on the old man's head, cutting it in half. Blood stained his kimono and his face. Toyohisa walked up toTakedu as he yanked his sword out and wiped his face with a casual expression,

"I think it's time we went back to the castle." Takeru said as he used the old man's kimono to clean his blade.

"We can't just leave his body like that!" Toyohisa said.

"…Do you still pity this guy?" Takeru asked.

"Huh? No, I mean people already know that we were here with him. If he's just laying here dead then we'll be suspected. Let's dump the body in the lake." Toyohisa said as he went over and drugged the body with them.

"…I see." Takeru went over and grabbed the old man's kimono from the front and they were easily running with it as they got back up the hill.

Running behind the shop, they dumped the body in the water and pushed it out. They threw his sword in with him and after a quick nod to each other, they went into the shop and started taking everything they needed.

"It feels weird stealing from a dead guy haha." Toyohisa said with a low laugh.

"Well, we'll need this stuff on our trip and the dead man in question owes this to us." Takeru said as he broke the glass that was encasing the items in the desk.

There were tanto's, throwing knives, and some utilities like poison, rope, etc. He grabbed a brown sack that he took and started putting in the rope and poison while he strapped two tanto's to the front of his waist. His wakizashi was strapped on his left since he was right handed.

Toyohisa was in charge of taking things like fruit, water gourds and more kimonos from the old man's room. Takeru stomped behind the desk as he was about to go towards their room when he heard the sound of the floorboard beneath him.

He tapped on it once more with his feet and furrowed his eyebrows in confusion.

"What's this…" He wondered. He stepped back before slamming his foot on the floorboard breaking it in half. He tore the floor up and saw that it was a ladder going down into darkness.

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